Talk about the soft bigotry of low expectations! You can hear her thinking, “well, these people are just like that. No sense making a fuss!”

Check out the comments on the thread, too. Sheesh!

Comment from apotheosisTime: September 24, 2008, 5:24 pm

Mr. Hastings has courageously tapped into the jugular of the global Bullwinkle/Sammy Davis Jr. conspiracy.

Comment from AllenTime: September 24, 2008, 5:36 pm

Do y’all think these people have always been this mooseshit crazy all along? Or, is it a recent thing? What’s really scary is that if they have always been this crazy; they’ve been in charge of important stuff for years. That spooks me.

It’s got to the point that I don’t care about their politics anymore just that they be actually sane. I know we have some serious moon units on our side, but it looks like the Burros have a whole lot more of ’em.

You know, Allen, I’m beginning to wonder. I’ve been around the ‘net a long time, so I know there’s LOTS of stupid out there. Lots and lots…and the easier it is to get online, the more stupid there will be.

But I’m beginning to wonder how much of that stuff is astroturfing. The really big sites — CNN and the like — the comments are light-bendingly stupid. But they always reflect the current lefty talking points perfectly. How can so many people be borderline illiterate, but RIGHT ON TOP of the day’s Democratic message?

Okay, okay…I’m not much of a one for conspiracy theories. But we know some percentage of them aren’t for reals. And the pattern of misspellings and punctuation errors strike me as…exactly the way smartass city people think the plebes communicate with each other.

Comment from AllenTime: September 24, 2008, 6:39 pm

Maybe some of it is coordinated, who knows for sure. I suspect a lot of it is ego. They believe themselves to be smart and hip, and when they see something that’s the next hot message they dive on it like a seagull on a hunk of bread.

Foul birds they are. Flying rats. Hey, instead of calling it astroturfing maybe we should call it seagulling. They’re always squawking, flying around in packs, and shitting all over the place. Fits ’em to a tee.

Comment from Uncle BadgerTime: September 24, 2008, 6:41 pm

If the UK sites are any guide, quite a lot of commentary is astroturfing. Certainly, the BBC stuffs its vox pops and phone-ins to represent the Lefty POV and though the blogs over here aren’t as influential as yours, there is plenty of evidence that the party toerags not only read them but try to manipulate them, too.

I don’t know about coordinated so much as just professionals taking an interest and pretending to be something else.

Like, Uncle B — remember that guy on the BBC boards we argued with years ago, and you Googled his name? He turned out to be some leftist professor at a public college. So, arguing politics on the internet on the taxpayer dime, basically.

Those boards were shit, too. I finally couldn’t take them any more.

Comment from SigivaldTime: September 24, 2008, 7:48 pm

Aren’t these supposed to be comments for the “hockey stick graph” post, not the Obama Commemorative Coin post? (I think so, and that suggests maybe more separation between comments and next post would help?)

If the Dow chart was generated from un-published data using an algorithm that made random noise look like a hockey stick, it’d be a lot more like the Global Warming graph.

Now, assuming the Dow has too much relation to capitalism as such might be a different mistake…

Damn right! I told you I had an official diagnosis of ADD, right? I didn’t know that until recently. I had a childhood diagnosis of “minimal cerebral dysfunction” which I thought meant “something is wrong, but we’re fucked if we know what.” But my friend the neurological nurse told me it was the original term for ADD.

I probably told you that already, but hey! I have ADD.

Comment from AllenTime: September 24, 2008, 9:19 pm

That reminded me of something funny Weasel. Years ago my sister was a surgical nurse in a major neurological hospital. She used to wear a funny T-shirt.

In other news, my dog is a really needy bitch. She spends all evening coming to me and whining and barking (yes I took her for a walk, yes I fed her, yes she’s been out again since then). I have no idea what she wants; if I take her out, she just runs around the yard.

Cats make me sneeze, but they also make me laugh. Especially when they chase lasers. That never gets old.

I can always send the dog back to my parents, but the house really did turn out to be too quiet when it was just me. I had hoped to add a husband, but that didn’t work out, so I got the dog instead. Easier to feed and less mess on the carpet, so it’s all good.

Comment from S. WeaselTime: September 24, 2008, 10:00 pm

Mrs P! What happened? The boy…what up?

I spent a few catless years between Andrew and Charlotte. It was awful, but I only take the cats the Cat Goddess sends me.

Eh, he didn’t want to marry me, so I ended it. He said something about how he was “worried about the change it would make in [his] life.” (By which he meant, moving out of the city and giving up the swingin’ bachelor life [i.e., not having to “check in” with anyone, eating buffalo wings whenever he wants, playing Wii all night, etc. Because of course I would chain him in the basement every night and present him with a honey-do list every weekend and demand a written itinerary every morning].) I decided I deserved better than a man who thinks that marrying me would be the worst thing that ever happened to him. Which is actually kind of a breakthrough for me, because previously, I would have just accepted it and counted myself lucky.

(An actual conversation while I sat on my parents’ couch crying:
Mom: Are you sorry you made your choice?
Me: (between sobs) No. I’m just sorry he’s a dick.)

Jill, I gots no couch yet, and she’s not allowed on the furniture. Though she did try to put her paws on the table today because she wanted to get to her leash so badly. (She LOVES walks.) When she does stuff like that, I usually exclaim, “Pepper!?!” in a tone of peculiar horror, as if I am absolutely aghast that she would behave in such a way. It seems to work.

Mrs. P, you’re better off without that loser. Believe me – been there, done that. More than once.

It seems like you and Miz Pepper are a match made in heaven.
She sounds sweet. Here’s a big ole hug for the two of you before I go off to Lala Land. (((hug)))

Comment from porknbeanTime: September 25, 2008, 12:04 am

Good for you Mrs. Peel. If he didn’t want to share in your goals, no use wasting your time.
I have an aunt who dated a guy for 20 years and it finally occurred to her, when she found out he never divorced his first wife, that he had no intention of marrying her. Then he dumped her.
Knew of another gal who was dating someone for 11 years, living together, and she whined and hoped that someday he would ask her to marry him. He finally did after 4 more years. Geez…

Mrs. Peel, by your sarcasm I get the feeling that it is abnormal for us men to be chained in the basement. So…. Cruel Wife really IS treating me cruelly? Damn damn damn. Crap. And here I thought her laughter was laughing with me.

Seriously, life is too short to hang around a guy who can’t get his shit together.

pnb – how the hell could your acquaintance date someone for 11 years who never did think “Hey, this is already a commitment, what is so unusual about making it official?” I just don’t understand. If I like someone I stick with ’em. If I don’t, I move on. Pretty simple rule-book. Simplify, simplify, I always say. Or was that Thoreau? I know I read it in one of my comic books once last year.

Thanks, all. He’s not a bad person at all. He just isn’t ready to get married. And I am. So, that’s that.

Oooh, sounds like the Weas is a tease! 😉

Comment from apotheosisTime: September 25, 2008, 11:12 am

and present him with a honey-do list every weekend

Weekend honey-do lists are a fact of life. As men, we must accept them as such…but we don’t have to look forward to it. That’s not to say we should mope and whine about it, but don’t expect glee, either.

Dawn, I’m fairly handy around the house and have replaced/repaired commodes (several, wifey always wanted new ones when we moved to a new assignment), installed hardwood floors (again, several), simple lighting (although electricity makes me a bit nervous), etc… Grew up in Detroit and spent many hours working on cars (Dad worked at Ford Motor Company).

I was completely baffled and defeated at installing a pet door for our dogs. We ended up having a guy from Lowe’s come out to do it (most reasonable price around here). That might not be the problem for your husband, but I thought I’d share that just in case.

Replacing a one-bulb fixture with a two-bulb fixture to get more light in your closet might be something he’s more comfortable with. If telling him that you heard “installing pet-doors sucks!!! and it’s worth getting someone else to install it to save on the aggravation” might help, do that. Changing the light fixture is much more likely to get done (at least around my house).

Dawn, yes.
We have a small bay window in the kitchen and have had a problem with some leakage near the corner. So husband’s dad came over and nailed some kind of flashing at the bottom so the water would roll away. Welllll…the water went under and got trapped. Now we have rot on that corner and may have to replace the door, not to mention replacing that part of the floor. Husband is not a ‘fixer’ of large things, father-n-law is but he ‘wings’ things as he goes with mixed results, so in most instances it is better to hire someone who knows what they are doing. The extra cost is worth it getting done properly in less time.

Comment from DawnTime: September 25, 2008, 12:10 pm

Okay, now I feel guilty that I’ve been stringing Uncle B along since 1995…

Badger, right now would be a good time to ask for anything. Your weasel’s feeling guilty…

…and distracted.

Thanks guys. We Dawn’s have subtle ways of nagging. Like posting to a blog where the good sir lurks. And asking for the cat door to be installed as a birthday present.

Doh! (note to self: no more advice for Dawn or man-card will be at risk!)

Comment from AllenTime: September 25, 2008, 12:27 pm

Hah, I was always way ahead of my wife. She would casually mention something, and I would take note. Then I’d do it at the first opportunity. She never even got a chance to come up with to do lists. Drove her nuts.

Once in a while I would procrastiante, just to give her some nagging time. It’s healthy, having a good naaging session on occasion.

Comment from porknbeanTime: September 25, 2008, 2:17 pm

pnb – how the hell could your acquaintance date someone for 11 years who never did think “Hey, this is already a commitment, what is so unusual about making it official?” I just don’t understand.

Guess she made it too easy for him.

She was one of those ‘progressive Canadians’ who view marriage suspiciously. Until she got tired from wondering if he viewed her as ‘free milk’ or ‘the cow’…or something..but was afraid he would get spooked and leave if she confronted him on it.
No matter how progressives like to think they are above humanity, they can’t get away from DNA.

It’s one thing to do it because that’s just how life worked out, but if you are avoiding because you have a serious issue about being serious? Might be time to examine. But you know what? Free country. Everybody is free to do it the way they want. Only one thing to keep in mind, don’t hurt somebody while doing it.

Strange for a guy, I know, but the whole “milk” and “cow” thing was funny for one telling and then it stopped being so entertaining. Am I getting old?

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